In today's competitive marketplace, the costs for companies to create, maintain, and grow new markets and market share is becoming increasingly expensive. Providing low cost systems of assuring the company's investment is protected by newcomers into the market place is increasing in demand. Previous systems of differentiating the authenticity of a product have generally focused on individual pieces. That is, if a manufacturer wants to ensure that a specific refill or consumable product (eg. a printer toner cartridge or a soap refill) is configured to specific equipment, that is the primary or corresponding product (eg. a printer or soap dispenser), each refill product will be individually provided with the authentication system that allows the refill product to be used with the primary product.
In cases where the individual consumable pieces are inexpensive or that have a physical shape that does not readily permit the inclusion of authentication systems, present authentication techniques are difficult to implement or are too expensive to justify the costs. For example, if the refill product is only worth a few pennies, the cost of incorporating an authentication system that may cost at least a few pennies to incorporate with the refill product cannot usually be justified.
Furthermore, for these types of products, as with other products that are readily marked, there has also been a need to enhance brand protection, to monitor and maintain shelf-life requirements and best-before dates, limit the life of a material, ensure non-compatible products are not used inappropriately for safety considerations, as well as for distribution control and prevention of cross selling into markets.
As described in co-pending application PCT/CA2011/001008, authentication technologies having electronic keying that utilize special optical coatings are effective and inexpensive methods of being able to differentiate between authentic products and counterfeit products on an individual basis. As described in PCT '008, individual products can be linked or keyed to a specific dispensing product using inexpensive LED emitters/receivers and special optical coatings. However, the PCT '008 technology generally requires that the two products are in close proximity to one another in order for the keying to be enabled and can thus be limited by a number of factors including the geometric limitations of the consumable and corresponding products.
In other words, and by way of example, with regards to bulk products, there has been a need for a system that enables the consumption of bulk products to be monitored without the need for marking each specific item. For example, it is more difficult and potentially expensive to mark individual hot drink stir sticks that may be used with a commercial stir stick dispenser. However, as is known, stir sticks are generally packaged and shipped in larger containers/boxes that may contain several hundred dozen individual sticks. As such, specifically keying individual stir sticks to a dispenser is difficult or impractical.
Thus, there is a need for an authentication system and methodology that is capable of and that is inexpensive enough to authenticate a wider range of products including odd-shaped and inexpensive products.
Further still, there has been a need for product authentication systems that can be readily retro-fit to existing equipment, such that existing equipment can be effective in ensuring that properly authenticated consumable products are used within the existing equipment without the need for extensive modifications to the existing equipment.
Further still, there has been a need for systems that can effectively monitor the consumption of product across a number of different pieces of equipment.